4 ms·

If you’re not awake already, you support what’s happening. Blind, which I realize is a bit of the wild west, is full of racist anti-immigration/pro ICE hatred.

If you’re not awake already, you support what’s happening. Blind, which I realize is a bit of the wild west, is full of racist anti-immigration/pro ICE hatred. Obviously, you can see where users work/worked, and it’s every company you could imagine. The sad reality is that a lot of people will do what they can to support racist agendas, possibly even motivate them to work at certain companies as it feels moralizing to their hateful beliefs.

andsoitis 8mo ago
> you support what’s happening. I don’t know that things are that black and white. Do you feel the same about the billions of consumers who buy and use the products these companies make?
- testfrequency 8mo ago
  Consumers less so. They are the victims, not the source.
  - amelius 8mo ago
    Fully agree. If you want to put the blame on consumers, at least show them on your adverts, product packaging, etc. all the morally abject methods used in the production of the product. If you hide it from them, all the blame is on you.
- dns_snek 8mo ago
  No because employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause. That's why ad-tech is so effective in the first place. Consumer pays $1.10 for a can of coke, $0.10 of that goes to ad-tech, the consumer watches some coke ads, ad-tech pays $0.05 to the publisher and the consumer receives $0.05 in benefits in the form of "free ad-supported content" (which they already paid $0.10 for). The only way for consumers to avoid this is to just stop spending money with any brand that advertises online, which is completely unrealistic and a much taller ask than asking employees to give up their deal with the devil (and work for just about anyone else except big tech).
  - reactordev 8mo ago
    Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”. Does your argument still hold up? >”employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause.” “employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions directly cause deadly harm.” I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be voting with our wallets and supporting these people but your initial argument is flawed. They produce goods precisely because consumers buy them…
    - dns_snek 8mo ago
      I didn't say "tech", I said "ad-tech" and "big tech" (meaning ad-tech like Google, not TSMC) which aren't morally neutral like ammunition is. Invasion of privacy and exploitation of private information is an inherent part of their business model.
    - hamdingers 8mo ago
      > Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”. Does your argument still hold up? Can you explain why you think it wouldn't? Tons of principled engineers choose not to pursue opportunities at military contractors, for instance, and this is not widely seen as unreasonable.
  - lukan 8mo ago
    "The only way for consumers to avoid this " Or they could stop drinking coke? But I guess that is too much to ask.
    - account42 8mo ago
      That's what gp said, except Coke isn't the only thing that funds the advertising industry - it's pretty much every product you can buy.
      - cogman10 8mo ago
        It's not perfect, but you can go a pretty long way by prioritizing store brands when possible. Stores still fund the advertising industry but to nowhere near the extent that name brand goods do.
- Paracompact 8mo ago
  There are degrees of culpability in any discussion. Generally, this is approximated by how much damage you individually are doing to your society compared to the alternative. You have to consume a lot of a company's products before your impact is comparable to working for them.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 8mo ago
    Exactly. If you have regular meetings on how to best progress development of the torment nexus, then you can't claim innocence just because you aren't the one deploying the torment nexus for torment-purposes.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  Black and white thinking is a large part of what got us here.
Diti 8mo ago
With the sorry state the software industry is currently in, I’m not surprised that developers would sell their soul in exchange for the peace of mind of being able to pay rent and food. Working for those companies does not make people “do what they can to support racist agendas”.
- testfrequency 8mo ago
  Is this your way of sharing that you work at X or are open to hurting people in exchange for cash? Also, you can retain your morals and choose a career, it is optional to select where you work as it’s hopefully voluntary.
  - surgical_fire 8mo ago
    There's nothing voluntary when your options are homelessness and starvation. The bank won't accept your morals in lieu of money when accepting mortgage repayments. Thankfully I don't live in the US and I don't work for anything even remotely related to this. I don't know if I would have the fortitude in the current US job market (based on what I read here) to threat the well being of the wife and daughter by taking principled stances.
    - testfrequency 8mo ago
      You chose the most absolute and extreme predicament possible to cast your “money is money” belief. You do realize this is what most criminals of the world just so happen to say as well, right? Where is the line?
      - surgical_fire 8mo ago
        There's nothing extreme in what I said, it is actually how the world we live in works. It's an extremely unfair system based on coercion - you are beaten down into submission by the implicit threat that without work you won't be able to make ends meet. Maybe you have a family that can support you financially. Maybe you already own the place where you live and could save up money over an extended period that you can weather a storm. If you are in these situations, that's great, but it is also an extremely privileged position to be in.
satvikpendem 8mo ago
Blind is like 4chan, not representative of the vast majority of software engineers but rather their own self contained bubble. I wouldn't use Blind as exemplary of anything in this case.
- rkomorn 8mo ago
  I spent enough time in FAANG and adjacent to realize that some of the senior engineers and directors around me held 4chan/Blind-like beliefs. Some of those folks were cultural leaders in the orgs I belonged to. Some even passed for nice people.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

andsoitis 8mo ago

> you support what’s happening. I don’t know that things are that black and white. Do you feel the same about the billions of consumers who buy and use the products these companies make?

testfrequency 8mo ago
Consumers less so. They are the victims, not the source.
- amelius 8mo ago
  Fully agree. If you want to put the blame on consumers, at least show them on your adverts, product packaging, etc. all the morally abject methods used in the production of the product. If you hide it from them, all the blame is on you.
dns_snek 8mo ago
No because employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause. That's why ad-tech is so effective in the first place. Consumer pays $1.10 for a can of coke, $0.10 of that goes to ad-tech, the consumer watches some coke ads, ad-tech pays $0.05 to the publisher and the consumer receives $0.05 in benefits in the form of "free ad-supported content" (which they already paid $0.10 for). The only way for consumers to avoid this is to just stop spending money with any brand that advertises online, which is completely unrealistic and a much taller ask than asking employees to give up their deal with the devil (and work for just about anyone else except big tech).
- reactordev 8mo ago
  Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”. Does your argument still hold up? >”employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause.” “employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions directly cause deadly harm.” I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be voting with our wallets and supporting these people but your initial argument is flawed. They produce goods precisely because consumers buy them…
  - dns_snek 8mo ago
    I didn't say "tech", I said "ad-tech" and "big tech" (meaning ad-tech like Google, not TSMC) which aren't morally neutral like ammunition is. Invasion of privacy and exploitation of private information is an inherent part of their business model.
  - hamdingers 8mo ago
    > Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”. Does your argument still hold up? Can you explain why you think it wouldn't? Tons of principled engineers choose not to pursue opportunities at military contractors, for instance, and this is not widely seen as unreasonable.
- lukan 8mo ago
  "The only way for consumers to avoid this " Or they could stop drinking coke? But I guess that is too much to ask.
  - account42 8mo ago
    That's what gp said, except Coke isn't the only thing that funds the advertising industry - it's pretty much every product you can buy.
    - cogman10 8mo ago
      It's not perfect, but you can go a pretty long way by prioritizing store brands when possible. Stores still fund the advertising industry but to nowhere near the extent that name brand goods do.
Paracompact 8mo ago
There are degrees of culpability in any discussion. Generally, this is approximated by how much damage you individually are doing to your society compared to the alternative. You have to consume a lot of a company's products before your impact is comparable to working for them.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 8mo ago
  Exactly. If you have regular meetings on how to best progress development of the torment nexus, then you can't claim innocence just because you aren't the one deploying the torment nexus for torment-purposes.
cucumber3732842 8mo ago
Black and white thinking is a large part of what got us here.

Diti 8mo ago

With the sorry state the software industry is currently in, I’m not surprised that developers would sell their soul in exchange for the peace of mind of being able to pay rent and food. Working for those companies does not make people “do what they can to support racist agendas”.

testfrequency 8mo ago
Is this your way of sharing that you work at X or are open to hurting people in exchange for cash? Also, you can retain your morals and choose a career, it is optional to select where you work as it’s hopefully voluntary.
- surgical_fire 8mo ago
  There's nothing voluntary when your options are homelessness and starvation. The bank won't accept your morals in lieu of money when accepting mortgage repayments. Thankfully I don't live in the US and I don't work for anything even remotely related to this. I don't know if I would have the fortitude in the current US job market (based on what I read here) to threat the well being of the wife and daughter by taking principled stances.
  - testfrequency 8mo ago
    You chose the most absolute and extreme predicament possible to cast your “money is money” belief. You do realize this is what most criminals of the world just so happen to say as well, right? Where is the line?
    - surgical_fire 8mo ago
      There's nothing extreme in what I said, it is actually how the world we live in works. It's an extremely unfair system based on coercion - you are beaten down into submission by the implicit threat that without work you won't be able to make ends meet. Maybe you have a family that can support you financially. Maybe you already own the place where you live and could save up money over an extended period that you can weather a storm. If you are in these situations, that's great, but it is also an extremely privileged position to be in.

satvikpendem 8mo ago

Blind is like 4chan, not representative of the vast majority of software engineers but rather their own self contained bubble. I wouldn't use Blind as exemplary of anything in this case.

rkomorn 8mo ago
I spent enough time in FAANG and adjacent to realize that some of the senior engineers and directors around me held 4chan/Blind-like beliefs. Some of those folks were cultural leaders in the orgs I belonged to. Some even passed for nice people.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]